


something tragic (about the two of us)

by golden_redhead



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introspection, M/M, Milk Puzzle, Oumota Week 2020, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team Danganronpa is a bunch of assholes but we know that I guess, Trauma, Virtual Reality, Vulnerability, kinda???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_redhead/pseuds/golden_redhead
Summary: "I took you for a chess kind of guy," Kaito breaks the silence, shuffling awkwardly in the doorway, hospital slippers on his feet and long white robe hanging freely down his shoulders.To his surprise, Kokichi snorts."Why? Because I'm a pretentious asshole?"Kaito's lips twitch slightly, not quite a real smile, but a shadow of one. "Maybe."
Relationships: Momota Kaito & Oma Kokichi, Momota Kaito/Oma Kokichi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 168





	something tragic (about the two of us)

**Author's Note:**

> Hiii, I'm running Oumota Week 2020 at @oumota-events (Tumblr) and, somehow, I actually managed to finish one of the prompts, huh : O Actually, I guess it works with both today's prompts, so I finished... 2 prompts? Huh.

He finds him in the common room area at night one day, sitting cross-legged on the floor and with his back turned to Kaito, dark strands of hair curling at the tips, longer than he remembers, brushing against his narrow shoulders.

"I took you for a chess kind of guy," Kaito breaks the silence, shuffling awkwardly in the doorway, hospital slippers on his feet and long white robe hanging freely down his shoulders. 

To his surprise, Kokichi snorts. 

"Why? Because I'm a pretentious asshole?"

Kaito's lips twitch slightly, not quite a real smile, but a shadow of one. "Maybe."

"Sorry to disappoint, Momota-chan," Kokichi drawled, turning back to his puzzle, scattered all over the floor around his small form, and milky white.

Kaito swallows, still lingering in the doorway, torn between entering and leaving, desperate to get out before the guilt gnawing at his insides -- the way it always does whenever Kokichi is nearby -- becomes too overwhelming to breathe, familiar clutches of anxiety reaching out for him. 

But some part of him is curious. 

Some part of him wants to stay. 

"Mind if I join?" he asks, quiet, half hoping that Kokichi won't catch that.

Of course he does, though. It’s Kokichi. All he’s ever done is make his life harder.

“If you must,” is all he says, voice flat, and it’s such a striking contrast with all of their previous interactions that Kaito feels uneasiness settling heavily in his bones.

Kokichi always used to use his words as a weapon, his voice ever-changing, sometimes sweet and innocent, other times dark and cruel, each word dripping with poison. 

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that Kokichi he knew is the same Kokichi sitting here on the floor, carrying himself with some kind of stoic, prideful resignation that seems so out of character for the persona Kaito remembers from the game, so different from that merciless trickster who never knew when to shut up, the one who played with them until they all landed right in his trap. 

Kaito lingers for a second longer, uncertain, but eventually he relents, taking a deep breath and bracing himself for what’s to come. 

He approaches him carefully, like Kokichi is some kind of wild, stray cat, ready to lash out at any minute if he is not careful enough. It earns him a half-amused smirk, Kokichi cocking his head gently to the side and one of his eyebrows raising high enough to disappear behind the long bangs and, well, okay, maybe Kaito isn’t being completely reasonable. 

He sits down on the floor, a sheepish smile on his face as he positions himself into a cross-legged position, mimicking Kokichi whose attention is back on the puzzle in front of him, slipping another piece into place easily. 

Kaito eyes the pieces scattered on the floor, small and completely blank, a suppressed memory resurfacing and a familiar headache throbbing at the back of his head along with it. 

He remembers puzzles like these, back from his training days, excitement flaring in his chest the way it always did when faced with a challenge. 

Now, all there is is a muted ache, trapped somewhere between his ribs, throbbing and unable to be fully ignored, a kind of pain that’s always caused by this disconnect between the not-real-memories and reality that his brain isn’t quite sure what to do with anymore. 

Years upon years of his life are nothing but a lie, a lie he’s constructed his entire life around only to realize that he forfeited the right to the life he knew before -- the only life that truly mattered -- the moment Tsumugi Shirogane pushed a shiny new contract into his hands and watched him sign it with hawk-like eyes, smiling triumphantly once he gave it back to her.

We will do great things together, she said, reaching out over the table to shake his hand.

Ironically, it’s the same thing Kokichi said, back in the hangar bathroom, all blood-stained smiles and feverish eyes, hand trembling when Kaito squeezed it in quiet agreement.

Kaito shakes off the memory, reaching for the puzzle closest to him and analyzing it while Kokichi slots two more pieces into their rightful places, not looking at him, long hair framing his face in shadows. 

“So,” Kaito starts slowly, “we have a therapy session tomorrow, right?”

It would be so easy to pretend that he doesn’t see the way Kokichi’s shoulders tense, hand freezing just as he’s about to connect another piece of puzzle. He recovers quickly, but there’s tension now, trapped in the way he holds himself, a cold glint in his eyes when he raises his chin, lilac eyes still refusing to meet Kaito’s mauve ones. 

“Wow, Momota-chan,” he says, lips stretching in something that tries too hard to be a smile that looks misplaced on his pale face, not fitting. “You are so forgetful! It’s not like we have the same schedule almost every day!”

Kaito runs his tongue against his teeth, choosing to ignore the comment. He leans in, putting the puzzle away and reaching for a different one only to connect it to the ones Kokichi already finished. 

Kokichi’s eyes flicker in his direction, lingering over his features for a half a heartbeat before he looks away, lips pursed.

He looks small, smaller than Kaito remembers him, even though he always knew Kokichi was definitely on the small side, his eyes in line with Kaito’s collarbone if they were to stand in front of each other. But he looks smaller, somehow, stripped off of his tricks and masks, and for the first time since he met him, Kaito feels like he sees him for who he really is. 

The sight makes his heart clench. 

“I think our therapist is done with us,” he says, almost conversational.

Kokichi hums quietly, cheek resting against his hand, elbow perched on one of his knees. Kaito takes it as an encouragement to continue.

“If we’re ever planning on leaving this shit place we’ll probably have to start to actually answer her questions,” Kaito comments pointedly, eyeing Kokichi with a kind of careful weariness. 

Kokichi snorts, again. Kaito frowns.

“I’m serious, you know,” he says, adding another two pieces to the incomplete puzzle. “She’s slowly losing her patience.”

Kokichi finally looks up, locking his eyes with Kaito’s for the first time this day -- maybe for the first time since they were pulled from the simulation -- and smiles sweetly, a shudder crawling down Kaito’s spine.

“Well, if they want answers so badly then they can just watch the game, don’t they?” he tilts his head to the side, blinking up at Kaito innocently, long eyelashes casting shadows down his ashen pale face as he struggles to uphold the lie that Kaito once mistaken for the truth.

He would never make the same mistake now.

This close and with his head raised, Kaito can finally see how sick he looks, the bruises dotting the pale skin beneath his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks, the dullness of his eyes. He doesn’t look his age, not at all, reminding him more of a sick child with his bony knees and sunken features. 

It feels wrong, so horribly wrong, and making Kaito feel all the more helpless. 

Somehow, even back then, pressed against the cold surface of the hydraulic press looming over his small figure and with burning poison coursing through his veins, Kokichi managed to look more in control than he does now, some kind of fiery, stubborn determination that fueled him for long enough to carry out his plan. 

And Kaito sees, he sees every single crack in his mask, every too wide smile and forced insult when more of their former classmates are around, and wonders how he couldn’t see it earlier, why did it have to go so far until it became clear. It might have not been real -- he knows, now, that it wasn’t real -- but it was  _ something _ . It felt real for them. It  _ was _ real for them. 

And Kokichi died, a horrible and pointless death, only to wake up, so the interrogation could begin anew, Tsumugi’s employees making sure of that. The only reason why they were even appointed therapy and stuck at the hospital was because of the lawsuits that would follow if Team Danganronpa didn’t provide its contestants with proper medical care and even that was the bare minimum, the company exploiting any loopholes it could find. As soon as they are considered to be in good enough shape, they will be thrown back into the real world neither of them can truly remember, sent to entertain the fans for as long as Team Danganronpa deems it appropriate until they move on to the next project. 

Kokichi knows it all more intimately than others, Kaito is sure of that. 

He’s seen the way the reporters and fans speak of him those rare few times on the screen until the TV had to be taken out, he’s seen the way he became the constant sensation, a shiny new toy for the fans to drool over, Team Danganronpa milking him until there’s nothing left but a husk of the person he used to be, the same way all Danganronpa’s biggest stars ended. 

Kaito swallows thickly against the bile lodged in his throat, fidgeting in place in quiet nervousness. Suddenly, he doesn’t want to have this conversation anymore

“We can’t keep stalling forever,” he says anyway, looking down at their unfinished puzzle, white pieces swimming before his eyes. “You know that, right?”

Kokichi laughs, a small sound devoid of any amusement. “As if that’s gonna stop them,” he remarks and he’s not wrong.

As soon as Team Danganronpa decides that they’ll just have their therapist and other doctors sign a document saying that they’re well enough to leave and then this is it. 

In the end, they are just as trapped as they were in the game, playing by the rules of someone else’s game and trying to survive the unimaginable. 

The headache is difficult to ignore now, pulsating in his temples, his head feeling as if stuffed with cotton, thoughts sluggish as he struggles to concentrate and not let the rising panic attack swallow him, a familiar pang of panic spreading through his limbs. 

Suddenly, he feels tired, feeling as if everything that happened is weighing down on him, his shoulders not built for that, not strong enough to keep carrying this burden around when he doesn’t even know what it was all for, when the game doesn’t seem to end even though they lost.

They just keep losing.

Kokichi’s right.

No matter what they do, no matter how they play their cards, it’s not going to stop Team Danganronpa. They’re only making it harder for themselves out of some misplaced, pointless sense of pride. 

“I gotta go,” he says abruptly, jumping to his feet, a wave of dizziness crashing into him as he tries to keep his balance, body still not quite his after weeks of misuse, locked in a pod. He doesn’t spare another look at Kokichi, even though he can feel him look at him intently, can feel the air in the room shift, Kokichi’s curious, worried stare boring into his skin. 

He’s on his way, knocking a few stray pieces of the milk puzzle as he hurries to the door, when he’s stopped by a weak tug at his wrist just as he reaches the doorway, and he almost trips over his own legs, a small shout slipping out as he struggles to stay upright. 

He turns back, mouth open, ready to ask what the hell Kokichi thinks he’s doing, but he stops himself when Kokichi’s grip on his wrist loosens almost as soon as his head whips in his direction, arm dropping limply by his side as if it’s boneless. 

“Stay,” he says, eyes still fixed on the puzzle, unmoving. “Please.”

Kaito deflates instantly.

Because this is the least he could do. 

Because, in some twisted, unfair way, he owes him that. 

In the end, they are in this together. 

“Okay,” he says, letting out a shuddering breath. And then, louder. “Okay.”

He moves to sit back in the same place he occupied before, crossing his legs. 

Kokichi doesn’t say thank you, but he doesn’t have to, simply offering him a small nod and slipping another piece of the puzzle in its place. 

This time they don’t talk, too tired for words, and Kaito lets the sound of Kokichi’s steady breathing lull his nerves and quiet the guilt throbbing in his chest.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Oof, it was a very spontaneous fic, I literally just... sat down and wrote it. Huh.  
> This seems to be a theme lately if I'm being honest, which is new. But I kind of like it. Writing always comes with so much pressure to me, so even if I'm not super happy with it it's still nice to be able to post something new. And if someone's able to enjoy it, then... Well, that's all I'm hoping for. 
> 
> Comments & kudos are as always super duper welcome and appreciated! They literally keep me writing!
> 
> Have a lovely Oumota Week, everyone!


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